"No Bad Builds" a failure in practice?

[Rostere]

and fallout and arcanum character generation is exact what obsidian were trying to avoid 'cause as much as you could build characters any way you wished, functionally there were a very small handful o' viable builds... at least according to the developers. you has chosen the worst examples o' balance and has illustrated exact what obsidian is fighting against with PoE. grats.

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

Maybe you're right in that they wanted to avoid Fallout and Arcanum character creation. Theoretically however, it's not impossible to balance a system as I described.

 

In any case Fallout and Arcanum has offered the most interesting options with regards to character creation as I see it, that's more important in my book.

[PrimeJunta]

Meditation, martial arts and playing a musical instrument still needs a decent level of intelligence.

 

 

The stat governing meditation is WIS, martial arts DEX/STR, and musical instruments, CHA.

 

 

I made my argument above, can't you read. You, on the other hand don't want to accept logic.

 

 

:checks back:

 

No, you didn't. You made an assertion and then appealed to common sense. That's not an argument.

 

Seriously, the "pasty bookish hunchbacked antisocial nerd flinging fireballs" archetype comes from D&D, presumably because its authors were pasty bookish hunchbacked antisocial nerds getting pushed around by the high-STR, high-CHA jocks and wanted a power trip. There's no cosmic truth to it. It's also one of the most boring wizard archetypes out there. Azar Javed from The Witcher was way cooler, as was Anomander Rake from the Malazan Book of the Fallen, or many others.

Edited August 23, 2014 by PrimeJunta

[Tartantyco]

According the lore wizard soul power comes from books. Wizard soul powers comes from grimoires. Remembering now?

 

 

That is not what it says, Ondb.

Edited August 23, 2014 by Tartantyco

[Zack Fair]

 

Meditation, martial arts and playing a musical instrument still needs a decent level of intelligence.

 

 

The stat governing meditation is WIS, martial arts DEX/STR, and musical instruments, CHA.

 

 

I made my argument above, can't you read. You, on the other hand don't want to accept logic.

 

 

:checks back:

 

No, you didn't. You made an assertion and then appealed to common sense. That's not an argument.

 

Seriously, the "pasty bookish hunchbacked antisocial nerd flinging fireballs" archetype comes from D&D, presumably because its authors were pasty bookish hunchbacked antisocial nerds getting pushed around by the high-STR, high-CHA jocks and wanted a power trip. There's no cosmic truth to it. It's also one of the most boring wizard archetypes out there. Azar Javed from The Witcher was way cooler, as was Anomander Rake from the Malazan Book of the Fallen, or many others.

 

I'd like to add, that a wizard's power can't come from meditation and martial arts, because we have a class in PoE for that. It is called a monk. As PoEs lore explicitely says (quoted by a user before me), a wizard is all about using magic books, mental discipline, lots of education. 

 

I'd like you to notice that I don't want a high INT low STR wizard. You can have you high STR wizard. But it HAS  to be a high INT high STR wizard (as Azar Javed), because intellingence is EXTREMELY important for a wizard.

Edited August 23, 2014 by Zack Fair

[PrimeJunta]

I'd like you to notice that I don't want a high INT low STR wizard. You can have you high STR wizard. But it HAS  to be a high INT high STR wizard (as Azar Javed), because intellingence is EXTREMELY important for a wizard.

 

I get that you think that -- but it's just your opinion, not some objective, cosmic truth. (It can be in your RPG campaign of course, and will be if it's a D&D campaign. But P:E isn't D&D.)

 

You can pout and stamp your foot about it though, if it makes you feel better. I find it unlikely that P:E wizards will be required to have high intelligence.

Edited August 23, 2014 by PrimeJunta

[Stun]

How are people complaining that you cannot make a viable INT/PER/etc fighter while at the same time complaining that attributes don't actually do anything (and a character with 3 everything is viable). Those are contradictory statements.

If anyone here is complaining that you can't make a viable INT/PER fighter, or even a viable RES/PER fighter then they're just blind guessing. They haven't actually tried it.

 

You can make a viable anything fighter in PoE because the class itself is viable right out of the box already. The stats in this game don't change this. They're *bonuses*.

[DigitalCrack]

 

 

 

Meditation, martial arts and playing a musical instrument still needs a decent level of intelligence.

 

The stat governing meditation is WIS, martial arts DEX/STR, and musical instruments, CHA.

 

 

I made my argument above, can't you read. You, on the other hand don't want to accept logic.

 

:checks back:

 

No, you didn't. You made an assertion and then appealed to common sense. That's not an argument.

 

Seriously, the "pasty bookish hunchbacked antisocial nerd flinging fireballs" archetype comes from D&D, presumably because its authors were pasty bookish hunchbacked antisocial nerds getting pushed around by the high-STR, high-CHA jocks and wanted a power trip. There's no cosmic truth to it. It's also one of the most boring wizard archetypes out there. Azar Javed from The Witcher was way cooler, as was Anomander Rake from the Malazan Book of the Fallen, or many others.

I'd like to add, that a wizard's power can't come from meditation and martial arts, because we have a class in PoE for that. It is called a monk. As PoEs lore explicitely says (quoted by a user before me), a wizard is all about using magic books, mental discipline, lots of education.

 

I'd like you to notice that I don't want a high INT low STR wizard. You can have you high STR wizard. But it HAS to be a high INT high STR wizard (as Azar Javed), because intellingence is EXTREMELY important for a wizard.

No it doesn't because the attributes are essentially modifiers in PoE. The game works under the assumption that if you pick a wizard, by default, your smart enough to be one. Adding to intellegence simply makes you a smarter wizard. PoE attributes are not physical attributes, they are modifiers for a default physical assumption based on your class.

[PrimeJunta]

I believe different people are using "cannot" in different ways. Some people use it to mean "should not be able to," others (who are usually mistaken) mean that you actually cannot, that it's not possible, or if it's possible, it will be unviable.

 

Thinking of the stats as bonuses is a pretty good way of looking at it actually. Your class defines the basic profile, you get to adjust that with your stat distribution. (And, I reiterate, I think the bonuses/maluses should bite more than they currently do, to make the stats feel more meaningful. The principle itself is sound though.)

[Rostere]

There are really two separate discussions going on in this thread. One is about whether stat names and divisions are nonsensical, and the other about the "no bad builds" dogma and it's intentional and unintentional consequences. Maybe we should separate the discussion into two threads so that it gets easier to follow for the devs? Or rename the thread to "general stat discussion"?

[Wintersong]

Because if someone has this raw soul power in him/herself, the guy needs to learn how to use if effectively, instead of having random magic bursts, that destroy a whole village. And you can learn from reading books that have this knowledge. I assume using soul power as magic is pretty difficult, otherwise every farmer on the land would his his soul power. So you HAVE to learn a lot, to be a good mage, and it should be like this in PoE, if we want the setting to make sense. 

 

Seriously, a low INT wizard is just as stupid, as a low STR fighter, even if Josh wants to prove otherwise. At least as far as common sense goes.

That assumption is correct in D&D where an Intelligence of 3 is the minumum for an intelligent being (that's why half-orcs can seriously dump that stat, as they cannot go below 3 anyways despite their -2 to Int).

 

For PoE attributes, that's not necessarily the case. Attributes are like body skills. You get a starting point and from there you build your character's strenghts. The base attributes we get right now, could be the average of John Does in PoE. Not spending a single attribute point in character creation doesn't give you a weakling in the D&D sense, just a regular Doe in PoE sense. Your Intelect 3 Wizard is not an idiot, he simply hasn't sharpened his intelect, honed his mental attitudes toward durations&areas of his skills. Raistlin Majere in PoE would enjoy a regular health instead of a crippled one.

 

Might in PoE is a different thing for Fighters and for WIzards. For FIghters it can be pure body muscle, for Wizards it can be aura strength. But instead of giving two attributes of which one will be ignored by the other class, you get an abstract one that works the same for both.

 

A different story could be to have "Idiot speech" for characters of "Intelect X or less" but that doesn't seem to be in the game so to assume "Intelect 3 == Village Idiot" in PoE seems to be too focused in D&D. A whole different system. Vampire The Masquerade has regular attributes going from 1 to 5. 1 was broadly weak, 2 broadly average and 3 broadly human top of the line.

[Sabotin]

This may sound a bit silly, but I was thinking that one reason why Might is such a favored stat for damage dealers could be that it's too simple and too direct compared to the others. When looking at what the attributes do, the others have some sort of strings attached, like derivative formulas or limited usability, but Might is just plain "you're better at your job", regardless of anything else.

 

An idea would be to change the damage increase to be some sort of average or minimum damage increase, as in you "roll" higher numbers on your damage rolls.

 

This would reduce burst damage in favor of reliability, acting as an approximation of armor penetration (rolling damage higher than DT negation more often). I'd still keep it relative to the weapon damage, thus still favoring weapons with high damage variance (usually big hitters). I think that would still fit with the rp side of things, generating muscly barbarians and mighty mages (cannon wielding rangers?), with light weapon users getting less out of the attribute (or rather getting more out of dex in terms of dps increase).

 

A negative side could be that this may be somewhat taking away from the distinctiveness of fighters, since they're advertised of being very reliable even in terms of damage, but I think the increases should be small enough to even it out.

[Ondb]

 

 

 

Meditation, martial arts and playing a musical instrument still needs a decent level of intelligence.

 

The stat governing meditation is WIS, martial arts DEX/STR, and musical instruments, CHA.

 

 

I made my argument above, can't you read. You, on the other hand don't want to accept logic.

 

:checks back:

 

No, you didn't. You made an assertion and then appealed to common sense. That's not an argument.

 

Seriously, the "pasty bookish hunchbacked antisocial nerd flinging fireballs" archetype comes from D&D, presumably because its authors were pasty bookish hunchbacked antisocial nerds getting pushed around by the high-STR, high-CHA jocks and wanted a power trip. There's no cosmic truth to it. It's also one of the most boring wizard archetypes out there. Azar Javed from The Witcher was way cooler, as was Anomander Rake from the Malazan Book of the Fallen, or many others.

I'd like to add, that a wizard's power can't come from meditation and martial arts, because we have a class in PoE for that. It is called a monk. As PoEs lore explicitely says (quoted by a user before me), a wizard is all about using magic books, mental discipline, lots of education.

 

I'd like you to notice that I don't want a high INT low STR wizard. You can have you high STR wizard. But it HAS to be a high INT high STR wizard (as Azar Javed), because intellingence is EXTREMELY important for a wizard.

No it doesn't because the attributes are essentially modifiers in PoE. The game works under the assumption that if you pick a wizard, by default, your smart enough to be one. Adding to intellegence simply makes you a smarter wizard. PoE attributes are not physical attributes, they are modifiers for a default physical assumption based on your class.

 

 

I am assuming if the wizard is smart by default, it will pass all INT checks in game (dialogs and etc..). 

However he/she does not pass those checks if you don't increase his/her attributes.

 

At least the attributes values and role playing options in game should be consistent.  

[DigitalCrack]

 

 

 

 

 

Meditation, martial arts and playing a musical instrument still needs a decent level of intelligence.

The stat governing meditation is WIS, martial arts DEX/STR, and musical instruments, CHA.

 

 

I made my argument above, can't you read. You, on the other hand don't want to accept logic.

:checks back:

 

No, you didn't. You made an assertion and then appealed to common sense. That's not an argument.

 

Seriously, the "pasty bookish hunchbacked antisocial nerd flinging fireballs" archetype comes from D&D, presumably because its authors were pasty bookish hunchbacked antisocial nerds getting pushed around by the high-STR, high-CHA jocks and wanted a power trip. There's no cosmic truth to it. It's also one of the most boring wizard archetypes out there. Azar Javed from The Witcher was way cooler, as was Anomander Rake from the Malazan Book of the Fallen, or many others.

I'd like to add, that a wizard's power can't come from meditation and martial arts, because we have a class in PoE for that. It is called a monk. As PoEs lore explicitely says (quoted by a user before me), a wizard is all about using magic books, mental discipline, lots of education.

 

I'd like you to notice that I don't want a high INT low STR wizard. You can have you high STR wizard. But it HAS to be a high INT high STR wizard (as Azar Javed), because intellingence is EXTREMELY important for a wizard.

No it doesn't because the attributes are essentially modifiers in PoE. The game works under the assumption that if you pick a wizard, by default, your smart enough to be one. Adding to intellegence simply makes you a smarter wizard. PoE attributes are not physical attributes, they are modifiers for a default physical assumption based on your class.

I am assuming if the wizard is smart by default, it will pass all INT checks in game (dialogs and etc..).

However he/she does not pass those checks if you don't increase his/her attributes.

 

At least the attributes values and role playing options in game should be consistent.

Being physically intellegent doesn't automatically mean your an intellegent conversationalist. Real life proves that. Edited August 23, 2014 by DigitalCrack

[Gromnir]

*shrug*

 

whatever ros thinks were the possibilities o' fallout and arcanum, the developers recognized that functionally those games resulted in only a handful o' played builds.  fallout and arcanum is the thing obsidian is rejecting, so holding it forth as the goal is complete missing the point.

 

am, not having enough feedback to know if PoE system is balanced at the moment. if interrupts is as useful as they would appear to be, then perception is woeful underutilized. Gromnir is having much difficulty in ignoring intellect for any build we has made so far. might is extreme useful, perhaps too useful, but dexterity is also extreme important for near every build. our only dump stat so far is resolve, and am guessing that becomes more important once we figure out interrupts.

 

people is making lots o' assumptions w/o having necessary feedback. am not knowing how we got 26 pages based on little more than gut feeling and comparisons to games that is terribad examples o' balance.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[PrimeJunta]

@Gromnir Resolve is not at all useless. Try building a front-line spellcaster, or a melee type who uses slow weapons. If you dump RES, he'll get Interrupted all the freakin' time and won't be able to get any spells cast/attacks made. I got bit in the behind by this when I thought RES was easily dumpable.

 

You won't notice it much on back-row/ranged types, and IMO PER is dumpable as interrupts against melee fighters only really work against slow-hitting types, and only against one target at a time, and there are better/stronger ways of debuffing them. I suspect it will be useful against spellcasters, but then casters have spells specially for that, and I believe some items as well.

[Ondb]

 

 

 

 

 

Meditation, martial arts and playing a musical instrument still needs a decent level of intelligence.

The stat governing meditation is WIS, martial arts DEX/STR, and musical instruments, CHA.

 

 

I made my argument above, can't you read. You, on the other hand don't want to accept logic.

:checks back:

 

No, you didn't. You made an assertion and then appealed to common sense. That's not an argument.

 

Seriously, the "pasty bookish hunchbacked antisocial nerd flinging fireballs" archetype comes from D&D, presumably because its authors were pasty bookish hunchbacked antisocial nerds getting pushed around by the high-STR, high-CHA jocks and wanted a power trip. There's no cosmic truth to it. It's also one of the most boring wizard archetypes out there. Azar Javed from The Witcher was way cooler, as was Anomander Rake from the Malazan Book of the Fallen, or many others.

I'd like to add, that a wizard's power can't come from meditation and martial arts, because we have a class in PoE for that. It is called a monk. As PoEs lore explicitely says (quoted by a user before me), a wizard is all about using magic books, mental discipline, lots of education.

 

I'd like you to notice that I don't want a high INT low STR wizard. You can have you high STR wizard. But it HAS to be a high INT high STR wizard (as Azar Javed), because intellingence is EXTREMELY important for a wizard.

No it doesn't because the attributes are essentially modifiers in PoE. The game works under the assumption that if you pick a wizard, by default, your smart enough to be one. Adding to intellegence simply makes you a smarter wizard. PoE attributes are not physical attributes, they are modifiers for a default physical assumption based on your class.

I am assuming if the wizard is smart by default, it will pass all INT checks in game (dialogs and etc..).

However he/she does not pass those checks if you don't increase his/her attributes.

 

At least the attributes values and role playing options in game should be consistent.

Being physically intellegent doesn't automatically mean your an intellegent conversationalist. Real life proves that.

 

 

Does the INT (as a attribute in PoE) represent physical version for you ? 

[Gromnir]

@Gromnir Resolve is not at all useless. Try building a front-line spellcaster, or a melee type who uses slow weapons. If you dump RES, he'll get Interrupted all the freakin' time and won't be able to get any spells cast/attacks made. I got bit in the behind by this when I thought RES was easily dumpable.

 

You won't notice it much on back-row/ranged types, and IMO PER is dumpable as interrupts against melee fighters only really work against slow-hitting types, and only against one target at a time, and there are better/stronger ways of debuffing them. I suspect it will be useful against spellcasters, but then casters have spells specially for that, and I believe some items as well.

have been playing ranged characters for the most part so we cannot tell what is being interrupted. cipher, ranger, chanter and druid has gotten some gameplay, but they has most always been ranged. in fact, only our bb fighter is a genuine melee combatant, other than animal companions, and to be fair our fighter seems to have not been interrupted as yet... or maybe he has. is hard to tell.

 

as we has noted elsewhere, a text or graphic indicator for interrupts would be very useful.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[DigitalCrack]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Meditation, martial arts and playing a musical instrument still needs a decent level of intelligence.

The stat governing meditation is WIS, martial arts DEX/STR, and musical instruments, CHA.

 

 

I made my argument above, can't you read. You, on the other hand don't want to accept logic.

:checks back:

 

No, you didn't. You made an assertion and then appealed to common sense. That's not an argument.

 

Seriously, the "pasty bookish hunchbacked antisocial nerd flinging fireballs" archetype comes from D&D, presumably because its authors were pasty bookish hunchbacked antisocial nerds getting pushed around by the high-STR, high-CHA jocks and wanted a power trip. There's no cosmic truth to it. It's also one of the most boring wizard archetypes out there. Azar Javed from The Witcher was way cooler, as was Anomander Rake from the Malazan Book of the Fallen, or many others.

I'd like to add, that a wizard's power can't come from meditation and martial arts, because we have a class in PoE for that. It is called a monk. As PoEs lore explicitely says (quoted by a user before me), a wizard is all about using magic books, mental discipline, lots of education.

 

I'd like you to notice that I don't want a high INT low STR wizard. You can have you high STR wizard. But it HAS to be a high INT high STR wizard (as Azar Javed), because intellingence is EXTREMELY important for a wizard.

No it doesn't because the attributes are essentially modifiers in PoE. The game works under the assumption that if you pick a wizard, by default, your smart enough to be one. Adding to intellegence simply makes you a smarter wizard. PoE attributes are not physical attributes, they are modifiers for a default physical assumption based on your class.

I am assuming if the wizard is smart by default, it will pass all INT checks in game (dialogs and etc..).

However he/she does not pass those checks if you don't increase his/her attributes.

 

At least the attributes values and role playing options in game should be consistent.

Being physically intellegent doesn't automatically mean your an intellegent conversationalist. Real life proves that.

Does the INT (as a attribute in PoE) represent physical version for you ?

Attributes in PoE are like modifiers for assumed physical attributes which are determined by class. Basically PoE attributes define how your assumed physical attributes react with and are perceived by the world. Another way to look at it is your characters ability to translate physical ability externally to his surroundings.

[Matt516]

 

 

First time reading this thread...

 

and it's turned into flamers who can't have a mature discussion. I think we need to lock this thread.

It would only start again in another thread, better let it grow in a controlled enviroment.

This was a great topic but it's functionally dead now... :/

[Ondb]

Attributes in PoE are like modifiers for assumed physical attributes which are determined by class. Basically PoE attributes define how your assumed physical attributes react with and are perceived by the world. Another way to look at it is your characters ability to translate physical ability externally to his surroundings.

 

 

I am not buying this explanation. It just RPG game, not real world. The system should be well described, consistent and logical.

[Tartantyco]

The system should be understandable and provide good gameplay.

[Iucounu]

The system should be understandable and provide good gameplay.

how about chess?

[Tartantyco]

What about chess?

[wickermoon]

 

The point he is making:

1/ there should not be viable intelligent Fighter build (who is weak in STR, CON, DEX).

2/ There should be viable melee INT build, but in different class (BattleMage or Paladin who has spells (powered by INT) which benefit his melee focus).

 

The very idea that class does not have bad builds is the problem. The goal that Josh is trying to achieve so badly.

 

The point he was making was that it would not work to have a viable intelligent Fighter. When it clearly does.

 

Why do you need a class "Normal Fighter" that invariably needs STR, CON and DEX and one class "Clever Fighter" who benefits from DEX, INT and PER, when you only need one class? What would be the difference? That Clever Fighter has abilities that are unlocked by INT?

The current system takes a Fighter ability and changes its nature dependent on your attributes. That is like having Normal Fighter and Clever Fighter as classes, only that they are handled by the same class and that the transition from "Normal Fighter" to "Clever Fighter" is more fluent.

 

And it works, it just needs tweaking.

 

 

 

Okay, create a fighter with below average constitution and tell me how that went. Because he's a front-line fighter, he's going to need constitution. He might not die, but it's not going to be a fun fight and I'm pretty sure that if you play on something other than easy you'll see how "viable" such a build is, unless you count compensating with other characters as a viable build.

 

A mage, on the other hand, can build whatever he wants and he will be useful on any difficulty, because casters can compensate. That is what I was trying to say. Also, what Ondb said, because it is ridiculous to believe that one class can fit several roles as well as several classes. Look at D&D, or Divinity, or DSA. The only exception I know is Cthulhu and that is because there are no classes and even then you'd want a higher education to play a professor, because by god's mighty arse, it just doesn't make sense for a scholar to be dumb as ****. The sorcerer from D&D wasn't based on intelligence and even he got Charisma as a main attribute in order to learn higher level spells, because that's what people call balance, apart from the fact that a mage never wore anything heavier than a robe, because nothing is more overpowered than a tanky mage.

 

To make it absolutely clear: My point is that a tanky, x-hundred HP heavy, plate wearing mage is ridiculously overpowered and yet you want to be able to play that. There's a reason WotC introduced armour restrictions and just because you want to be hip and not mainstream doesn't mean that your idea is automatically good. The concept sounds great, but it is flawed as soon as you can create a plate-wearing hp monster with so many offensive and powerful spells that you'd think the USA would invade you.

[PrimeJunta]

To make it absolutely clear: My point is that a tanky, x-hundred HP heavy, plate wearing mage is ridiculously overpowered and yet you want to be able to play that. There's a reason WotC introduced armour restrictions and just because you want to be hip and not mainstream doesn't mean that your idea is automatically good. The concept sounds great, but it is flawed as soon as you can create a plate-wearing hp monster with so many offensive and powerful spells that you'd think the USA would invade you.

 

Have you tried playing one in P:E?

 

I have. He's not overpowered. He casts half as slow as a "glass cannon" and despite pumping RES, occasionally gets Interrupted. Overall difficulty was not affected much at all.